MFT: In praise of Tim Allen's grunts in "Home Improvement"

One of the most fascinating features of internet is ability to point at something out of seemingly ordinary, take it outside of its original context by sheer force of severe overthinking, turn it sideways and put it into bizarro land where it will roll and tumble, twist and whirl and bounce upside down and backwards and then thrive as nonchalant "believe it or not" phenomena. Nothing is safe from this feature. It happens randomly and spares nothing in particular. Sometimes it manages to turn something really irritating and desperately awful into otherworldly manifestation of the eavesdropping void.

That is what happened with Tim Allen's tv series "Home Improvement". Back in the day it was one of the most watched sitcoms of USA. Its workman-styled mindnumbing dangling low- to lower-mid- brow humor was appealing to the broadest possible audience. Tim Allen himself seemed to be quite annoying but despite all his over the top haplessness his character Tim Taylor was strangely engaging. However the show itself was mostly middle of the road with ocassional slapstick gag brilliance. But that wasn't preventing Tim Taylor of having a brush with utter unmitigated brilliance because of one little character detail. He was constantly grunting. It was a signature feature of his character - elaborate "simian grunt". They were performed astoundingly flat, were deliberately misplaced, instantly bizarre and tremendously affecting in its own right.




As time went by the grunts became the most famous element that came out of "Home Improvement" series. Everything else seemed to be a bit dull in comparison. Grunts became heavily memefied. It is easy to see why - Allen's grunts are alienating, weird and bulbously annoying and in the same time they are extremely infectious. You can't help but try to mimic them just for laughs. Memetic mutation even made a language of sorts out of them. You can go full-on call and response by using only variations of Tim Allen's grunts. The resulting conversations sound like something straight out of Peter Brook and Ted Hughes constructed language Orghast. I suppose these grunts served as a basis of mesolithic early human language from "Far Cry Primal". I guess there must be an esoteric programming language made of grunts lost somewhere in the deep web.

As a writer i tend to look for something completely different. That's how Tim Allen's grunts caught my attention. After some consideration the grunts seemed to be extremely out of place callbacks to prehistoric human language from the movie "Quest for Fire". They are distinct and can be used creatively. There is something-something special in them. Among most overused versions of the grunts are:

• "AEUHHH?"
• "UUUEEGGHH?!?!" 
• "EELREEEE?!?!" 
• "EELLROOO?!?!" 
• "AAARRGHHROOO?!?!" 
• "AAARRGHHREEE?!?!" 
• "EEE!"
• "uuuuuuuuAH?" 
• "aaaaaaarooh?" 
• "ooooooogh?:

You can see these grunts almost anywhere. It is pure readymade dada shambolic bamboozle with slight streak of "sha-la-la"-sizzle in the tail of rebound. But these are far from being the best transcriptions. If you look at "Home Improvement" fan page you can find full transcripts of selected episodes. There is a treasure trove of grunts and other blissfully inane onomatopoeaia hidden deep inside. You can build your own found sound poetry out of them and it will be some damn good lettriste "almereyda".

And that is something worth trying. There is enough variety to construct a symphony of grunts that will retroactively make every battling futurist blush like a schoolgirl groped. You have your "uh"'s and "oh"'s and "huh"'s and more and more and more. It is mindmelting wormhole. Even some of the dialogue starts to look extremely Pinteresque after a while. It is strange and scabrously inspiring. ere's my take on the found grunts:

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Oh, so, uh, blah-blah-blah-blah
Ha, ha, ha! So, huh? Phew. Uh-oh. 
Noooooo! Awww! Boo! Boo!

Go! Go! Go!

Ah-ah-ah-ah! Ah-ah-ah-ah!

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha. 

Ohhh! Ahhh! A-ha. A-ha. A-ha.

Uhh! Uhh!Uhh! Awww.

Hm-hmm, hm-hmm, hm-hmm.

Arh-arh-arh-arh-arh! 

Hmm.

Oh, um, uh, uff-uff-uff-uff!

Uh, a, uh, uh, Ahhhhhhhhh!

No, no. Hm. Hm-mm.

Oh, Oh, Oh, no, no. No, no.

Oh, ooh, ooh, U-huh. 

Uhh-uhh-uhh. Uh-uhh-uhh-uhh! Uh-uh.

Hah-hah-hah-hah!

Huh!

Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh!

Uhh!

Uhh-uhh!

Uhh-uhh-uhh!

Huh-huh-huh!Huh-huh-huh! Huh-huh-huh! Uhh?

Pizza! Ahhh!

Huh-huh-huh-huh!

Oh, Hah-hah-hah. Ooo.

Hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

Ah-ah-ah-ah!

Hah-hah-hah! Ahhh. Ha-ha-ha.

Ooo.

But there is more.

***

Here's a supercut of some grunts throughout the series. The video construct a collage sound poem out of various bouts of grunting out of episode's context. Somehow it manages to keep barely registered pace and even phantom thread of narrative. It ghastly presents a kaleidoscope of complete failure to communicate from the distance that turns tragedy into comedy. Something like opening segment of "2001". Because of that it manages to break away from the source material and become a thing of its own.

But that is not the most fascinating riff on Tim Allen's grunts. There is a DOOM wad that replaces every single element of game's design with Tim Allen's zany portrait and his grunts. There are Tim Allen walls, Tim Allen doors, Tim Allen ceilings, Tim Allen floor, Tim Allen HUD, Tim Allen weapons, Tim Allen enemies, Tim Allen, Tim Allen, Tim Allen (for some reason i think there is also Tim Allen Footnote to Howl). And also flurry of Tim Allen's grunts piling one on top of another instead of shots fired, monsters roaring, footsteps, reloads, door openings or explosions. Everything is Tim Allen. It is truly maddening. I like to think that this is how Hell actually looks and sounds like.



Tim Allen DOOM wad seems to be an ultimate expression of petrifying horror as seen by Mistah Kurtz. Strangely enough it really resonates with DOOM's themes of decimating legions of doom and slaughtering hordes of hellspawns. It is a legitimate critique of homogenization of cultural environment to the point of complete insanity.